A bubble on water

Oasis

Bholi, born to Mistress Folly, collared me the other day for a listen-in on her happy life. She lived in an upscale residential area with her happy family amidst all those boulders of chairs and sofas.

The TV and the stereo-sets awaited her pleasure. The jumbo-size refrigerator spilt out its contents to the dining table three times in the day. Perhaps there was justification for her to feel that nothing of all this would change; that one day would follow another, bringing with it new movies to be seen, more coffee and card parties.

Above all, the huge solid house which her father-in-law had built gave Bholi the greatest feeling of permanence. ‘We are permanent here, you see,’ she said waving a hand towards her house as I felt my own rootless life galloping away in a gale.

Purandaradasa, the 16th-century minstrel from Karnataka, with a tanpura in his strumming hands, bells at his ankles, sang and danced in the streets in an ecstasy of having seen God in his visions.

The story goes that the Haridasa was tied to a temple pillar in Pandarapur and beaten unconscious, for singing of God. The themes of his songs cover the entire gamut of human existence. He sings of the pleasures of the senses which are fleeting and the mortality of man.

Only in the love of God, he says, there is permanence and everlastingness. Purandaradasa died, being a frail mortal, but his songs full of the glory of God live forever.

Earthly life, sings Purandaradasa, is like a bubble upon water; cling firmly to the everlasting love of God.

There has been, time and again in the musty records of history, a lone example of someone who seeks a magical release, a cutting loose into the mad ecstasy of song and dance. It’s not an easy task.

One has to tread the sharp razor’s edge to find God. Such a one was Purandaradasa… a wanderer and a pilgrim who moved forever from one place to another with the song of the impermanence of man and the eternal city of God always on his lips.